In September 2018, Cai Zhenhua stepped down as deputy director of the General Administration of Sport of China, coinciding with his farewell to Chinese soccer, and a new policy aimed at developing young players was quietly born.
Since the 2017 season, the CFA has officially enacted the rule that "at least one player under the age of 23 should be on the pitch in every game."
At the beginning of the season, teams had a muted reaction to this. However, with the opening of the summer transfer window, unlike the previous clamor for the introduction of big-name foreign aid, they began to keep an unusually low profile, hardly spending any heavy money on the introduction of internal and external aid, and instead replenished the young players stipulated by the Football Association.
"Twenty-three years old" has become an invisible shackle on the careers of young Chinese players.
Guangzhou Evergrande gave up the domestic market and brought in young players Feng Boxuan, Deng Yubiao, and Wu Xiang from the lower Portuguese leagues; Beijing Guoan brought in Ning Weichen from Portugal's Cova Pidadi, and Shandong Luneng also brought in Wei Jingzong from Portugal.
When the word "Portugal" comes up frequently in the Chinese transfer window, people are not only concerned about the huge number of Chinese players studying abroad, but also curious about how they happen to fit the new policy.
Almost as soon as the new policy was introduced, it led to a sudden shortage of young players for a large number of clubs, an imbalance between supply and demand in the player market, and an instant rise in the social status of players of the right age.
At this point, if any agent has a large number of players of age in their hands, they can almost reap the benefits.
Coincidentally, a soccer agent did have a large number of players of age on hand at the time.
National Youth Black Gold
In 2016, Li Ming, then head coach of the 97 National Youth Football League, was a huge disappointment in front of the media after the loss at the Asian Youth Championships, complaining about the fact that there was no one to complain to.
However, what Li Ming is afraid to admit is that many unheralded players suddenly appeared in the national youth teams participating in the Asian Youth Championships at the time, mostly from Portuguese third and fourth division teams such as Gondomar and Guimarães in Portugal.
What he could not explain was that during his tenure as national youth coach, the national youth team had recruited a large number of players from Starlight Hopscotch when they participated in international matches. After Li Ming's dismissal, half of the National Youth players were eliminated.
After Li Ming's dismissal, Sun Jihai took over the command of the 97-year-old Olympic selection team and later became Hiddink's assistant coach. During his time as Hiddink's assistant, Sun Jihai has traveled to Xinjiang to carry out youth training under the Starlight Hopscotch hand.
At the time Hiddink was almost hollowed out. During his time in charge of the Olympics, there were often seven or eight Starburst Hopscotch players on the field. And this team had a red-hot record, winning many matches.
When Hao Wei dissolved his relationship with Starlight, he took over with three Starlight Hopscotch players, Yang Liyu, Huang Cong, and Zhang Lingfeng, bringing with him the Asian Cup squad.
In addition to Yan Dinghao and Shan Huanhuan can not play due to injury, the former coach Wu Wei, Li Yang, Zhang Yuan, Lin Liangming, Yao Daogang brought the "Starlight Hesheng system" were cleaned by Hao Wei, and replaced by all the players of Luneng youth training.
This has almost become a "generation of the son of a court" a true portrayal of Chinese soccer is really no one available, this is the most difficult to solve the puzzle behind the national youth black gold deal.
Wade-Giles era
During the Weidi era, Starlight Hopscotch began to be tied to the Football Association. One of the agency's masterpieces was finding stickman coach Rick Rink for the Nine-Thirds.
In August 2011, Wei Di, who had just taken over as director of the Football Management Center, made such a plan when he officially launched the "Youth Study in Portugal" program, and committed to promoting this program as a key project.
There were two agents who were mainly responsible for this at the time. One was Qingdao agent Chen Qi, who was also behind Dabao's move to Benfica. The other was Guo Feng, the younger brother of Guo Hui, the head of the youth department of the FA at the time, and later the owner of Xinghui Hesheng.
Weidi left Chinese soccer in 2013, and the "Stay in Portugal Program" was not completed.
Some of the players who stayed in Portugal broke away from the control of their original clubs and football associations and were recovered by Xinghui Hesheng, which gradually kicked off the export of Chinese soccer to domestic sales.
When Starlight's players can keep sending them to the National Youth Olympics; when Riklink was dropped from the National Youth, they can still be operated as national junior coaches; when people close to Starlight keep standing in the national coaching positions; when the policies introduced by the FA helped Starlight, which had hoarded a large number of players of the right age, to make a lot of money by selling at the highest point.
In Chinese soccer, you can consider this a man-made disaster.
The Death of the New Deal
In 2017, when the new FA policy was introduced, Lippi used two players, Zhang Yuning and Deng Hanwen, who were under 23 at the time, in the remaining five matches of the Top 12. Of these, Zhang Yuning was still abroad at the time, while Deng Hanwen had already become a starter for Guizhou Renhe before the new policy was introduced.
2019 Asian Cup, Lippi did not take the players under 23 years old, only Liu Yang, Liu Yiming, Wei Shihao at the time of the list to catch up with the era of the new policy of the Football Association.
Wei Shihao hadn't gone to Evergrande at the time, and hadn't taken advantage of the policy to play in Hong Kong or Guoan. Liu Yiming was already the main center back for Tianjin Quanjian before the policy was introduced. Only Liu Yang might make the national team because of the new policy.
Meanwhile, in the six years since the FA's new policy was introduced, the national team's record has been very poor.
In October 2018, Sung Yiu Tung led the Ninety-Nine National Youth Football League (NNYFL) to two consecutive losses at the Asian Youth Championships, with only an inconsequential victory in the final round of the group.In 2019, Sung Yiu Tung led the Zero National Youth Football League (ZNYFL) to elimination at the qualifying stage of the Asian Youth Championships.
Under the leadership of fire-fighting coach Hao Wei, in January 2020, the 97th National Olympic Games, whose team right has been changed several times, lost three consecutive group matches without scoring a single goal.
If many of the young players returning to China in early 2017 were still on loan, the market for young players in Chinese soccer went completely crazy after 2018.
Beijing Guoan signed Wei Shihao, paid more than 25 million signature fee.At the end of 2017, Lippi's team publicly said that He Chao is Zheng Zhi's successor, Evergrande, Quanjian and other clubs inquired about the price of Yatai for 300 million yuan.
Not only did the New Deal fail to produce guys, but the specific policy at one point allowed the market price of these age-appropriate players to completely increase the weight of agents and these players who caught up with the New Deal.
Without collusion of interest, the coincidences would be too concentrated. How Starlight and Sheng understand the future market for young Chinese players and why the FA just chose 23 years old just because it meets the age requirement for the Olympics is an explanation that no one will believe.
Who knew that the clues strung together by Rieklinck, Portugal's retention program, the 1997 National Youth Olympic Games, Hiddink and others would turn up more untold secrets? Cai Zhenhua: from Li Ming to Sun Jihai, "U23 new policy" cake was moved.
